[mhluongo]

Money laundering: the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses.

Tornado Cash isn't for laundering money, it's for breaking the chain of public transactions on block explorers. It doesn't make withdrawn fees look "legitimate".

Tired of these goal posts getting moved.

[asojfdowgh]

"breaking the chain of public transactions" sounds remarkably similar to "concealment of the origins of" for some reason.

[marcell]

It's only money laundering if you are concealing the origins of money from an illegal activity.

I can use Torando Cash to conceal the origins of my paycheck, for example to preserve my privacy when transacting with peers.

[JumpCrisscross]

> can use Torando Cash to conceal the origins of my paycheck, for example to preserve my privacy when transacting with peers

Probably. After it’s been publicly outed as a known money laundering venue, however, you should switch to another service. It’s also reasonable for everyone who deals with you henceforth to subject you to additional scrutiny, to make sure you were not in face laundering. Because while the privacy vs. friction tradeoff may be acceptable to you, it’s not to everyone, and just as you have a right to privacy they have a right to not associating with you.

[arcticbull]

But there's no reason to do that unless you're trying to hide a crime.

I'm sympathetic to the free speech argument, but also, if I put up plans for the Kitty Murdulator 9000 whose principally designed to kill kitties, then yeah I'd call that bad. Like sure you could do something else with it I guess, maybe, but it's clearly designed for one thing, and one thing only.

Don't want your transactions to be public? Use a bank like a normal person.

[marcell]

I don't need a reason to do it or not, it is legal under the law.

Tornado Cash has legal uses under the law (like the one I described above), because it can be used to conceal the origins of legally obtained money.

See the legal definition of money laundering here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1956 , it specifically calls out "unlawful activity".

[nl]

There was plenty of unlawful activity done using Tornado cash.

For example the money stolen in the Axie Infinity hack was lauded through Tornado Cash.

[dannyw]

There are heaps of reasons to do that, you could want to use crypto but also want your transactions to not be public.

An obvious example would be a software engineer working in web3 that gets a portion of their pay check in a crypto asset.

[arcticbull]

That's great and all, but that doesn't change the responsibilities incumbent on a service that transfers value under the law. And that is to ensure their compliance with AML and KYC rules - and best effort verification that sanctioned individuals aren't using it. None of which this particular service did. RIP.

I think something like 1/4 of all the transactions on Tornado were laundering lol. Imagine any other business that operated like that. For instance, a bank where 1/4 of tellers are stealing the deposits of customers. At some point, the banking that happens is incidental to the actual business.

So like, if you have a legitimate use for the service, and you know that by participating you're facilitating money laundering, you're complicit IMO. And if you don't want to be complicit, go find a different service.

This privacy-absolutism is silly though.

[notch656a]

Something like 1/4 of worldwide all employment is 'informal' (i.e. typically quasi-illegal or outright illegal).

[mistrial9]

> there's no reason to do that unless

the owner of the money decides to do that; private transactions are a thing

[rattlesnakedave]

I deposit 100 ETH to tornado, wait a while, and withdraw in 10 ETH increments. There is still no explanation for the origin of the funds. Money laundering is made up of placement, layering, and integration. Tornado did only one of these (kinda).

[saalweachter]

Now imagine you use those anonymous 10ETH chunks to buy NFTs from yourself, or invest in your own ICO, etc etc etc.

[StanislavPetrov]

Privacy is not a crime.

[whatever1]

That is exactly what money laundries are doing. They are obfuscating the money sources.

[MerelyMortal]

I thought money laundering was just providing an explanation for the source of funds:

People don't money launder cash to hide where it came from, they money launder cash to provide a reason why they have it.

It sounds like the same thing, but it those are really two different things.

(I'm not a Tornado Cash proponent, but I am a digital financial privacy proponent; I support the Monero project.)

[kodah]

I'd really love to hear why you and other commenters are so supportive of transaction tracking.

Cash was and is still not very trackable; it's so untrackable that the IRS has to declare what events trigger tracking. Something like Tornado Cash just mixes what it's comparable to a credit card purchase down to being as trackable as cash. I don't see a problem with that.

Whether or not criminals use it is really not of concern to me. The FBI, CIA, and NSA can do their jobs just fine without transaction tracing. The fact that their jobs remain hard are also an indicator of freedom. Their jobs have already gotten quite a bit easier with the birth and success of the digital world.

[whatever1]

Nobody asked for money tracking, we just are just against money laundering at scale from the comfort of one’s couch.

[TakeBlaster16]

Again, Tornado Cash is not money laundering. It only provides transaction privacy. Here is the difference:

The result of money laundering is clean money: you can deposit it into your bank, pay taxes on it, and buy a Ferrari. That only happens if you can give the IRS a plausible explanation for how you obtained the funds legally.

Tornado Cash does not give you this plausible explanation. After using it, you still will not have clean money with an IRS-approved explanation of income. All you gain is privacy from chain analysis.

You could launder money through a restaurant or minting a NFT, since those are otherwise legal activities that could plausibly explain ending the day with more money than you started with. But Tornado Cash does not fit that description.

[whatever1]

You get clean wallets that do not have any connection with the dirty ones.

You are free to use the proceedings even if we know for a fact that the originating wallet had proceedings of illegal activities.

The crime has been washed.

[TakeBlaster16]

If you sell $160000 worth of crack for green paper bills that nobody knows are connected to drugs, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.

If you sell 100 ETH worth of crack and send it through Tornado Cash, you cannot buy a Ferrari. The IRS will come knocking and ask where you got the cash. First you would need to launder the money.

[dannyw]

Keeping transactions private is as money laundering as end-to-end-encryption is terrorism communications.

[arcticbull]

Not when your use of the service obfuscates criminal flows and the service intentionally avoids meeting its AML/KYC obligations and doing even the tiniest iota to stop criminal use. That's when it switches from a privacy venue to a money-laundering venue and the fact you're there and using it in a legal way is incidental.

[Barrin92]

>why you and other commenters are so supportive of transaction tracking

because most people aren't a fan of tax evasion, black markets or crime. The same does in fact apply to cash which is why many jurisdictions heavily restrict large cash transactions and are in the process of reducing the usage of cash or circulation of large bills.

I think the NSA, FBI and CIA being able to do their job is a good thing because I'm not too keen on making the life of money launderers any easier.

[StanislavPetrov]

No, money laundering obfuscates money sources because the money is illicitly gained or because the money holder doesn't want to pay taxes. It is neither money laundering or a crime to obfuscate the legitimate source of your money, because it is nobody's business but yours.